Bowdrill

At Home In The Wilderness Part III:
Fire

by Tom Brown Jr.

from Mother Earth News, Issue #73

In the
first two articles in this series (see MOTHER NOS. 71 and 72),
I dealt with ways to secure shelter and water . . . the two
most important requirements for anyone facing a survival
situation. On the other hand, one seldom needs a fire
in order to stay alive. But because a good blaze can be used
to cook food, sterilize water, create tools, and—of
course—keep a survivalist warm and comfortable, I've placed
firemaking third on my list of valuable wilderness skills.

It's important to know how to ignite a
fire without the aid of a cigarette
lighter—which is simply a modern form of the old
flint-and-steel system—or matches. After all, you might
unexpectedly find yourself thrust into a situation when you
have no supply of purchased flame starters. Or if you're
camping and your matches get wet or lost, you might be forced
to end your trek early if you're unable to get a blaze going
without artificial aids. What's more, no self-respecting
outdoors purist would want to be dependent on a finite
supply of matches.

In my school I teach 17 ways of building
fires. In my opinion, however, the best overall flame
starter—and the one I'll share in this article—is the bow
drill. Learning how to work with this tool will give you a lot
of satisfaction, and add to the security you'll feel when
traveling through the woods.

Before I go into the details of making a
fire, though, let me emphasize that whenever you practice
this—or any other—outdoor skill, it's important to do the best
job on the task that you can possibly do. Consistently careful
craftsmanship—even in rehearsals—will not only insure good
results but also improve your ability to get the job done
under adverse conditions. Most native Americans aimed at this
same perfection of skill on an everyday basis. They felt that
anything—including, but not limited to, living plants and
animals—that they took from the Earth Mother was a gift from
the Great Spirit. Of course, doing a shoddy job of employing
the gifts would, in effect, be showing disrespect for the
Spirit's generosity, so they tried to make works of art of all
things. Such actions were an integral part of these people's
religious beliefs, and served the purpose of greatly
increasing their survival abilities.

To make tinder, work some light dry wood (such as
this cedar bark) with your hands... until the fibers
loosen (you can soften any particularly stubborn fibers
by pounding them between two rocks)... and you have a
light, fluffy bundle... The fireboard, drill and
handhold... The bowstring is wound once around the
drill...

Perfect fire-starting form... Blowing the
tinder-wrapped coals into flame... and thrusting the
lighted bundle into a prelaid
fire.

PREPARING THE SITE

Of course, before you can make a
fire, you have to choose a spot for it. Your site should be
free of any combustible brush, dried grasses, or leaves . . .
away from low overhead branches . . . and not in an open, breezy area or on an exposed
ridge. I also recommend (as I pointed out in my first article)
setting your fire some six to ten feet—depending upon wind and
weather conditions—away from your shelter entrance.

Once you've picked a site, dig out your
fire pit. This dish-shaped hole should be about a foot deep
and have gently sloping sides. The depression will cradle the
fire, with its coals grouped toward the center, and thereby
help your embers burn much longer than they would in a flat
fire bed. Be sure, though, not to make the hole so deep that
the pit will prevent your fire's heat from reaching you. And
if you're digging in rich, loamy earth or soil that's full of
root stems, line the bed with rocks to avoid the possibility
of starting an underground fire. (Such blazes can actually pop up aboveground miles away, and
months later!) Furthermore, use only stones gathered from a
high, dry area for this—or any—fireplace job, since
waterlogged rocks may explode when heated.

To increase the amount of useful warmth
provided by the blaze, build a simple horseshoe-shaped
reflector around the side opposite your position. Rocks, damp
wood, or even earth can be used to make the semicircular
heat-funneling structure. An experienced survivalist always
builds fires with reflectors and tries to sit with his or her back against a
tree, rock, or shelter. That way, the reflector can help warm
the person's front and (by bouncing heat off the rear barrier)
back as well. And with such a setup a small fire—which won't
use up a lot of wood—can provide sufficient comfort.

An amateur, on the other hand, will often build a
roaring blaze but leave it totally unbordered, and will
therefore have to spend the night spinning at various speeds
to keep one side of his or her body from freezing and the
other from burning! Indeed, the amount of turning around a
person has to do to stay warm when sitting by a fire will tell
you right away whether that individual has good woodcraft
skills. (I call this "the spin indicator test".)

FINDING
WOOD

Most people who attempt to start an
outdoor fire are stopped in their tracks by one difficulty:
locating dry wood. The cardinal rule to remember in this situation is that
any wood found on the ground will have soaked up moisture and
will be quite hard to light, so never collect ground wood for
fire-starting fuel. Instead, gather dead limbs from standing
trees. This wood will always ignite easily. (In fact, even in
the Olympic rain forest—which gets 88 inches of rain a
year—it's possible to pull a dead branch off a Douglas fir,
whittle away only 1/8" of its outer surface, and find dry
fuel.)

Also, try to collect your standing wood
from trees in open sunny areas rather than those near stream
bottoms or lowland regions where fog and moist air likely
collect. You can easily determine whether the wood you're
gathering is dead and dry by breaking off a piece: If the
stick snaps cleanly and audibly, you've got good firewood. In
most weather conditions, you can also find reasonably dry wood
by touch. When your hands are too cold to be sensitive, you
can press the fuel against your lower lip or cheek to feel for
dampness.

You'll need four types, or grades, of
fuel. The first is tinder . . . the light, airy, and
fast-burning material that's used to catch a spark. The dried
inner bark of elm, cottonwood, willow, sage, cedar, aspen,
walnut, or cherry trees makes excellent tinder. Dry vegetation
such as reeds and grasses, dogbane, velvet leaf, yucca,
primrose, fireweed, bulrush, milkweed, cattail, and thistle
(especially, in the last three instances, the plant's
down) will work well, too. In fact, with a
little bit of effort, you can use just about any dried fibrous
plant.

To prepare your tinder, remove all hard,
crumbly bark or inner pith from the gathered fuel and rub the
remaining fibers back and forth in your hands until you've
created a fluffy bundle made up of filaments as small as
thread. You can soften any particularly stubborn fibers by
pounding them between two rocks.

The next type of fuel you'll need is
kindling . . . tiny twigs or slivers that range
from the thickness of a pencil lead to that of a pencil
itself. You can either break kindling material off sheltered,
dry branches or carve the fuel from larger pieces of wood.
Always be sure to keep both this and your tinder absolutely
dry.

Squaw wood, the
next biggest fuel, gets its name from the fact that native
American women collected this pencil- to wrist-width wood as
part of their daily routine. Rather than waste time and energy
cutting huge trees for firewood, Indians burned the small and
easy-to-gather sticks as often as possible.

Last comes large
firewood .
. . too-big-to-breakfuel that's added to a fire
only after the blaze is going strong, when you can use damp
wood. (Dry wood, of course, will burn more easily and give off
less smoke and steam.) But don't waste your energy trying to
cut up these sections. Instead, shove the butt end of a large
log into your fire . . . and then feed the rest of the piece
in as it burns down.

And remember: Don't try to take shortcuts
when gathering any of the four types of fuel. Take the time to
obtain the best materials, and your fire will be easy to start
and to keep burning no matter what the weather conditions. In
addition, be sure you gather enough firewood to last
through the night. There are few worse wilderness tasks than
having to leave a snug shelter and stumble around in the dark
to replace your supply.

ADDITIONAL FUEL TIPS

If you want to generate a
tremendous amount of heat, adequate light, and a slow-burning
fire that results in fine cooking coals . . . use hardwood for
your fuel. On the other hand, should you need quick heat and a
lot of light, it's best to find a softer wood such as cedar,
tamarack, or juniper. Wet wood, green leaves, or pine
boughs can be added to a fire to make a thick plume of smoke
and steam that will help searchers pinpoint your location.

Damp fuel can also be used to help you
keep a bed of coals burning overnight. (Green wood
works well for this purpose, too, but don't cut living trees
for fuel unless you're faced with a true survival situation.)
Add a liberal supply to a strong blaze just before you go to
sleep. The slow-burning wood will keep the fire going for
several hours, and produce coals that'll usually last through
the night.

THE TIPI FIRE

Once you've prepared your site and
gathered the necessary materials, it's time to lay the fire. I
strongly recommend tipi-shape stacking for this job. Since the
design allows the fuel to stand high and lean toward the
center of the structure—that is, where
the flames naturally rise—it starts easily, burns efficiently, and throws out quantities of heat and
light. Furthermore, the slanting walls and resulting high
flames help the blaze hold up even in rain or snow storms.

Start with a bed of tinder and then,
working from your finest-grade materials on up, build a
cone-shaped structure. (You may want to lay down a tripod of
firm sticks first, to give the design its form.) Also, be sure
to leave an opening through which you can reach the interior
of the pile to light the fire. This entrance should face the
wind so that the prevailing breeze can help drive the flames
up through your fuel.

I generally put about six inches of
tinder and kindling in the center and add a good supply of
squaw wood—working carefully from the skinniest sticks to
thicker ones—until the tipi is 8" to 10" across and a foot or
more in height. When it's raining, I'll lay small slabs of
bark around the cone to help keep the interior dry until I'm
ready to start the fire.

If you're carrying matches, you can
simply thrust one into the "doorway" of the tipi and watch
your blaze take off (even in wet weather). However, if you
don't have
matches, you'll need an effective alternate method . . . such
as the bow drill.

BUILDING THE BOW DRILL

There are five parts to a bow-drill
apparatus: the bow, the
handhold, the
fireboard, the
drill, and
some tinder. The
bow can
be made by cutting a 2-1/2to 3-foot length of 3/4" green
sapling . . . preferably one with a slight bend to it. Fasten
some cordage made from a shoelace, a strip cut from your belt,
or a tightly braided piece of clothing to the stick's ends
(1/8" nylon cord is a good choice when you're practicing,
since it'll last through many trial runs).

The handhold—the objectthat
fits in your palm and holds the drill in place—can be made
from a small section of branch, a rock with a depression in
it, or a piece of bone. Almost any type of wood will do, but
it's best to use one that's harder than the drill and
fireboard material.

The next two pieces, the fireboard and
drill (or
spindle), should both be contrived from the same type of wood . .
. and your choice here is critical. You must select a branch
of dead wood that's very dry, yet not rotted. It should also
be a wood of medium hardness: You don't want to use a very hard species
(like oak, hickory, and walnut) or a very soft resinous type
(like pine, fir, and spruce). Cottonwood, willow, aspen,
tamarack, cedar, sassafras, sycamore, and poplar are best.

After you've chosen your wood, cut off a
branch for the spindle (it should be about 3/4" in diameter
and 8" long). Then use a sharp rock or a knife to smooth out
the drill until it is as straight and round as you can make
it, and carve points on both ends
of the stick.

To construct the fireboard, find a branch
that's about 1" thick and 10" long, and whittle it flat on
both sides. You want to end up with a board that's twice as
wide as your drill and about 1/2" in thickness.

The last item needed to make fire with a
bow drill is tinder, which
I described earlier.

BURN AND NOTCH

With all your equipment assembled,
it's time to finish preparing it by burning holes in the
handhold and fireboard and then cutting a notch in the board.
To mark the holes' positions, place a small nick—which will
serve as a starting point—in the center of the handhold and
one in the fireboard. The latter cut should be far enough in
toward the middle of the board to leave room for the
depression that will be burned in by the drill
and for
the added notch.

Now, wrap the string once around the
drill to secure the stick. Adjust the tension of the cord so
that you can't slide the spindle back and forth along it.
Next, set up the components as shown in the accompanying photo
of a bow-wielder.

Take careful note of the form used by
this individual: If you duplicate it exactly, youshould be able to start a fire under almost any weather
conditions. The right-handed survivalist (a left-handed person
would reverse these instructions) has placed his left foot
across the fireboard, while he rests his right knee on the
ground. His chest is set firmly on his left knee, and his left
hand—braced tightly against his shin—grasps the handhold and
keeps the spindle perpendicular to the fireboard. The bow is
held in his right hand and moved in line with his body. From
this position the firemaker can easily spin the drill and press
down on it from above. In addition, his body over shadows the apparatus and thus creates a meager,
but valuable, weather break.

When you've positioned yourself and your
equipment properly, begin vigorously moving the bow back and
forth . . . at the same time gradually increasing your
downward pressure on the
handhold. This action will probably feel quite awkward at
first . . . but after you've gotten the hang of it, you'll
soon have drill, fireboard, and handhold smoking and be able
to burn good-sized depressions in both the board and the hold.

Next, it's time to add the most essential
part of the entire bow-drill setup . . . the
notch. This pie-shaped opening should be carved completely
through the fireboard, with its point just short of center in
the plank's burned-out pit. Make your notch a clean,
well-manicured cut.

Finally, you should grease the top of
your drill and the
handhold's socket to prevent friction-caused heat from making
that depression any larger, and to help the drill rotate
smoothly. You can use natural body oils by simply rubbing the
end of the drill stem along the sides of your nose or in your
hair. Pine pitch, animal fat, and slime molds will also do . .
. but don't use water, or the drill will swell and bind up.
And be sure not to mix up the ends of the drill. Otherwise,
you'll get grease in the fireboard, ruin the friction there,
and be unable to make a coal.

MAKING YOUR FIRE

At last, you're ready to start a
fire. Check to see if the ground you're working on is damp. If it's moist, use a plate
of dry bark to give yourself a decent work surface. Next, lay
down your tinder and position the fireboard directly over it,
so that the notch opens to the exact center of the fiber
bundle.

Now, set up the rest of the apparatus
. . . be sure your form is good, your handhold firmly
braced, and your drill straight up and down. Then move the bow
back and forth quickly while slowly pushing the drill
downward. Press firmly until the lower part of the spindle and
the fireboard are smoking violently. But don't apply too much
pressure, or the drill will slow . . . the string will start
to slip . . . and the smoke will quickly diminish.

Once the board has begun to smolder, keep
stroking the bow for ten more complete repetitions. Then
carefully dismantle the
upper apparatus without jarring the fireboard. Next, carefully
slip your knife blade down through the top of the notch to
dislodge the burning dust formed by the abrasive action of the
drill upon the board. Remove the board, and wrap the tinder up
around the glowing ember . . . taking care not to crush the
coal. Gently blow the bundle into flames—turning the tinder,
as necessary, to keep the ember in contact with fresh fuel—and
thrust the burning mass through the doorway into the center of
your firewood tipi.[EDITOR'S NOTE: Very
dry tinder can flame
up dramatically . . . use appropriate caution.]

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT

All the cutting, burning, greasing,
and stroking involved in using a bow drill may seem
troublesome, but with practice a survivalist can proceed from
start to finish—including making the
entire apparatus—in just under 15 minutes. The task doesn't
require a lot of strength, either . . . form and coordination
are much more important. Indeed, I've often taught
six-year-old children how to make fires by this method.

Learning to use a bow drill may not come
easy at first, but keep at it and you'll soon master an
important survival skill. Then you'll always have the security
of knowing that you can make
a fire, if necessary, at almost any time and in almost any
place.

For more material by and about Tom Brown Jr. and the Tracker School
visit the Tracker Trail
website.